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Talk:Unbelievable/@comment-4078039-20140306125953/@comment-3575890-20140306131932
I wrote a post outlining the parallels between Zaya and Imogeli a long time ago and I still stand firm on it. I see a lot of comparisons between Zaya and EClare, and I respect that people have that view, even though I don’t understand it all. To me, they are 100 percent Imogeli. (Jsyk, this post is not going to be favourable to either of the above-mentioned ships so if you ship either or both, it’s probably best that you just scroll right on by.) For starters, both ships are totally one-sided. Whereas Imogen was smitten with Zig and Zig currently is with Maya, Eli and Maya have only ever used Imogen and Zig, respectably, to get over the people who they were actually in love with. There is no balance. As Eli could not return Imogen’s feelings to the same degree as hers for him because of his love for Clare, Maya’s heart has always been with someone else as well. It was Cam (and on some level will always be him) whom she expressly chose over Zig when given the choice between the two boys, and it was Cam who she yearned to be kissed and touched by when she was using Zig on the rebound. Even now with Cam gone, Zig is still the furthest thing from an option in Maya’s eyes. She hasn’t once thought of or mentioned him, even in her deliberating over dating Miles. Zig does not even place second. He simply places last. I’m far from a fan of Zig’s, but even I acknowledge the unfairness of that to him. Both ships have some pretty damn tainted histories. Imogen manipulated Eli’s emotions when he was in a most unstable and vulnerable state and enabled his destructive behaviours even taking it as far as encouraging him to stop taking his medication; Zig cheated with Maya on his girlfriend, who is also Maya’s best friend, and in a string of events, inadvertently pushed Maya’s boyfriend to his breaking point culminating in his suicide. (I am not saying that Zig is to blame, so please don’t come at me about that) AS WELL, both Eli and Maya used Imogen and Zig without having genuine romantic feelings for them. Imogeli and Zaya have much healthier, functional dynamics as strictly platonic friendships. Zig and Maya had a great friendship before Doll Parts. There were no unnecessary complications and nobody got hurt; Imogen and Eli had an instantly healthy relationship the moment she stopped obsessing over him and moved on with Fiona. Both ships bring the worst out of all parties involved. Imogen and Zig behave/d ruthlessly and selfishly not caring who they had to throw under a bus to get what they wanted from Eli and Maya — Imogen attempted to poison Eli’s mind against Clare and encouraged him to throw away his medication; Zig didn’t seem to care at all about cheating on and hurting Tori as he was too fixated on hooking up with Maya the very next day after and persisted in continually trying to wedge his way in between her and her boyfriend as well as refusing to take no for an answer. Even now, he hasn’t learned much of a lesson seeing as he’s yet again boring holes in the back of the heads of boys Maya likes (remember how that turned out last time?) and seems to have no issue with Zoe plotting revenge against Maya, which is rather odd because you would think if he cared as much as he claims to he would actually want to protect her from further harm after the hell she went through last year that he was around to witness first-hand. But I digress. From the opposite end of the spectrum, Eli and Maya used and toyed with the emotions of Imogen and Zig for agendas of their own so no one comes out smelling like a rose. These infatuations border on obsession and are predicated on quite superficial, fickle grounds. Imogen was enthralled with the idea of Eli before she knew him as a person and lost interest in him immediately after she realized he was more than she could handle, and once Zig was with Tori, he never showed any romantic interest in Maya before her makeover in Doll Parts. Both Imogeli and Zaya have occurred at points in time of which Eli and Maya were vulnerable and/or mentally unstable. Eli was off his meds thus chemically imbalanced when Imogeli first got together, and he wasn’t much better when they began dating either; Maya was lonely and desperate for affection the first time she kissed Zig, and then later, upon throwing herself at him, grief-stricken and traumatized. Both ships lack substantial development. There was no build up in advance of the sudden transition from platonic to romantic feelings on the parts of Zig and Eli. ZIP. ZERO. ZILCH. Eli and Zig were deeply in love with Clare and Tori, and then they flip-flopped to Imogeli and Maya overnight. 90 percent of Imogeli’s run consists of the two of them toying with each other and Eli having zero romantic feelings for her; the remaining 10 percent is their being thrown together for five seconds based on Eli magically developing feelings for her out of nowhere only to split and later connect with their respectable soulmates; 90 percent of Zaya’s run consists of Zig being in love with Tori while barely looking in Maya’s direction and the remaining 10 percent is the exact opposite of that without any substantial build up to justify this sudden shift. The ship was briefly explored before it was all together scrapped for Camaya as abruptly as Imogeli was dropped for EClare and Fimogen, which brings me to my next point. Both ships were used as plot devices. They have only ever occurred for the purpose of furthering a particular plot or prolonging another ship. In simplest terms: -one half of the ship always prefers someone else over the other half of the ship. -one half of the ship is emotionally unavailable whereas the other half behaves obsessively as well as rather selfishly when it comes to their respectable other half in the ship. -unfounded changes of heart. -sloppy love triangles. -sloppy writing. -character derailment. -plot device treatment. -generally dysfunctional.